Re: TMQL - Proposal: Removal of reifier axis

Hi Patrick,

> Question:

> Are you assuming an association has a reifier, hence a name 
> characteristic and you want to skip asking for the reifier?

Yes. If the association is not reified, the result would be empty.

> That is no change in the modeling of association, just a short-cut in 
> the query?

Exactly.

> Or something more fundamental?

Nothing more fundamental, although there are some corner cases which
have to be considered.

If a topic reifies association A and A has an item identifier B and
the topic has an item identifier C. What's the result for the "item
identifier" axis? B and C? Or is it B in the context of the
association and C in the context of the topic?

I think the reification mechanism is somewhat underspecified in TMDM.

  """
  The act of reification is the act of making a topic represent the
  subject of another topic map construct in the same topic map.
  """

If topic T reifies association A and T is an instance of TT. Is A an
instance of TT?

Best regards,
Lars
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